unded with respect and veneration, in the eighty-ninth year of her
age. She had long been the widow of a statesman whose name she bore with
dignity. Her modest and quiet funeral was followed by the orphans of the
parish and the sisters of the Sacred Compassion.

The deceased left all her property to the Charity of St. Orberosia.

"Alas!" sighed M. Monnoyer, a canon of St. Mael, as he received the
pious legacy, "it was high time for a generous benefactor to come to
the relief of our necessities. Rich and poor, learned and ignorant
are turning away from us. And when we try to lead back these misguided
souls, neither threats nor promises, neither gentleness nor violence,
nor anything else is now successful. The Penguin clergy pine in
desolation; our country priests, reduced to following the humblest of
trades, are shoeless, and compelled to live upon such scraps as they
can pick up. In our ruined churches the rain of heaven falls upon the
faithful, and during the holy offices they can hear the noise of stones
falling from the arches. The tower of the cathedral is tottering and
will soon fall. St. Orberosia is forgotten by the Penguins, her devotion
abandoned, and her sanctuary deserted. On her shrine, bereft of its gold
and precious stones, the spider silently weaves her web."

Hearing these lamentations, Pierre Mille, who at the age of ninety-eight
years had lost nothing of his intellectual and moral power, asked, the
canon if he did not think that St. Orberosia would one day rise out of
this wrongful oblivion.

"I hardly dare to hope so," sighed M. Monnoyer.

"It is a pity!" answered Pierre Mille. "Orberosia is a charming figure
and her legend is a beautiful one. I discovered the other day by the
merest chance, one of her most delightful miracles, the miracle of Jean
Violle. Would you like to hear it, M. Monnoyer?"

"I should be very pleased, M. Mille."

"Here it is, then, just as I found it in a fifteenth-century manuscript

"Cecile, the wife of Nicolas Gaubert, a jeweller on the Pont-au-Change,
after having led an honest and chaste life for many years, and being
now past her prime, became infatuated with Jean Violle, the Countess de
Maubec's page, who lived at the Hotel du Paon on the Place de Greve. He
was not yet eighteen years old, and his face and figure were attractive.
Not being able to conquer her passion, Cecile resolved to satisfy it.
She attracted the page to her house, loaded him with caresses, suppli